InfiniteIO fires up the Application Accelerator to torch metadata latency

InfiniteIO has juiced up its file metadata accelerator, doubling operations per second and increasing file handling from 750,000 to 1 billion per node and 2 billion per cluster.

The system, rebranded as the Application Accelerator, now runs at 3 million metadata ops/sec instead of 1.5 million, and can halve machine learning run times. It also tiers older files from on-premises filers to back-end cloud storage faster.

InfiniteIO CEO Mark Cree

Mark Cree, CEO of InfiniteIO, an Austin TX startup, said: “Reducing latency is the last frontier in improving application performance. The tech industry has been focused on making incremental performance improvements with faster storage and file systems, when the biggest opportunity is in removing the file system latency created by processing metadata requests.”

Metadata latency

A file system has to be accessed for data and for metadata, such as a file or folder’s address, access permissions and file attributes. The ratio of metadata requests to file content requests can vary with different file-handling applications.

InfiniteIO discovered these metadata requests to file content request ratios in its testing:

Simple NFS File Read: 7:1

AI training model: 36:1

Software build: 400:1

Source code change management: 1,300:1

The faster the metadata requests are handled, the faster the application runs. Traditionally, metadata requests are handled by the NAS filer. InfiniteIO’s accelerator sits inline between accessing server and filer. It keeps a copy of the metadata in its memory, providing DRAM access speed rather than slower filer storage drive access speed.

Application Accelerator set up as 3-node cluster

InfiniteIO claim it can increase the performance of all-flash NAS systems, including NVMe varieties.

When older files are tiered to the cloud, the InfiniteIO Application Accelerator retains their metadata so that requests do not incur cloud data egress charges. This archival migration frees up space on on-premises filers and delays the need to increase capacity. File migration is controlled through user-set policies.

The Application Accelerator is available now from InfiniteIO’s channel. Customers with maintenance agreements can add the higher performing data tiering feature with a non-disruptive upgrade. Last, and maybe least, the system has a new API for cloud usage chargeback.